Series

Volume 5

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Studying Contemporary Western Society

Method and Theory

Margaret MeadEdited and with an Introduction by William Beeman, Brown University

304 pages, bibliog.

ISBN 978-1-57181-815-7 $120.00/£85.00 Hb Published (December 2003)

ISBN 978-1-57181-816-4 $24.95/£17.00 Pb Published (December 2003)

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Pb

Description

Few anthropologists today realize the pioneering role Margaret Mead played in the investigation of contemporary cultures. This volume collects and presents a variety of her essays on research methodology relating to contemporary culture. Many of these essays were printed originally in limited circulation journals, research reports and books edited by others. They reflect Mead's continuing commitment to searching out methods for studying and extending the anthropologist's tools of investigation for use in complex societies. Essays on American and European societies, intergenerational relations, architecture and social space, industrialization, and interracial relations are included in this varied and exciting collection.

Margaret Mead served as Curator of Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1925 to 1969. She began her career with a study of youth and adolescence in Samoan society, published as Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). She published prolifically, becoming a seminal figure in anthropology, and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1979.

Chapter 5. Methodology in Racial Testing: Its Significance for SociologyChapter 6. The Study of National CharacterChapter 7. The Swaddling Hypothesis: iIs ReceptionChapter 8. Some Cultural Approaches to Communication ProblemsChapter 9. A Case History in Cross-National CommunicationsChapter 10. Adolescence in Primitive and Modern Society: The New GenerationChapter 11. Our Educational Emphasis in Primitive PerspectivesChapter 12. Early Childhood Experience and Later Education in Complex Cultures

PART III: PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Chapter 13. From Plight to Power: Youth as a Political and Economic ForceChapter 14. Religion in the Melting Pot: Religion and our Racial TensionsChapter 15. The Contemporary American Family as an Anthropologist Sees ItChapter 16. Sex and Censorship in Contemporary SocietyChapter 17. Sexual Behavior: An Anthropologist looks at the [Kinsey] ReportChapter 18. Jealousy: Primitive and Civilized